Here are a few of the better things I have read online this week.

• The great Robert F. Worth on role reversal in Libya for the NYT. The plot of novel by Elias Khoury combined with the restraint of great reportage http://nyti.ms/KXkpL8.
• (Speaking of which, the wonderful archipelago books has just published an English translation of Khoury's As Though She Were Sleeping -- you can hear Khoury talking about the book here).
• Here is an interesting Dan Diner essay from Mittelweg 36 on Jean Améry's once much-read essay on torture. It contains the following suggestive comment on French history:

"French history is marked by a unique constellation. An West-East historical orientation focuses on events in Europe, on the continent. A North-South perspective foregrounds events in the colonies. In actual fact, the two axes – the horizontal and the vertical – merge with the one another. This has significant consequences both on the plane of reality and in the realm of memory."